Interbike Day 2.5: More Stuff

Stuff is, of course, the reason that we are here. Behind all the movie premieres, the races (which have never been held at a Vegas Interbike, but this year, we got two of them) and the other associated events, Interbike is about bikes and all of the bajillion things - clothes, accessories, carbon fiber bolts and other "necessities" we need to ride.

With product introductions scattered throughout the year, Bicycling editors have already covered a number of the big items, like SRAM's new Red road group. And much of what wasn't part of a dedicated press introduction was unveiled at the recent Eurobike show. So Interbike doesn't hold as much of the surprise factor that it did even a decade ago, where a company could drop a techno-bomb on an unsuspecting show attendee. But even so, scattered around the hall are a few modest-seeming smaller ideas and products that are actually quite elegant in their design and execution. Often, these come in the form of answers to questions that the bike industry - for whatever reason - has never asked itself. Here are three:

This is a water bottle. It's called the Podium. It's from CamelBak. Two seasons ago, the company introduced a "sport bottle" designed to capture some of the market share currently dominated by the ubiquitous Nalgene bottle, that necessary accessory of everyone from mallgoers to yoga aficionados. Now, CamelBak is expanding its bottle line with a traditional bike-cage going water bottle.

The innovation here is in how CamelBak adapted its bite valve technology to a bike bottle. Bottles start out watertight but, over time, they leak and dribble even when the valve is snapped shut. If you use water, it's not the biggest deal, but for those of you who actually use sports drinks on rides, it means a nice thick coating of Cyto-Gator-Power-Max-Aide on your frame. Or your hand. The CamelBak bottle uses a simple self-sealing silicone bite valve that opens when you squeeze the bottle and shuts, watertight, when in the cage. CamelBak says it has flow rates identical to the ubiquitous Specialized bottle it is now competing with, but the valve won't ever leak. A simple twist of the top locks the whole cap assembly so that the bottle doesn't leak if you put it in a bag. CamelBak also uses a tasteless (the term here is used literally, not as a qualitative assessment) polypropylene bottle with anti-microbial treatment. It's offered in 21 and 24-ounce versions, for $9 and $10, respectively.

Canadian company Louis Garneau is best known for its clothing, but the new CFS-150 shoe is an intriguing idea. It's the latest in the custom-molded shoe field, joining Shimano and Lake in offering a high-end carbon-soled road shoe that can be custom fit to the user. It's got all the requisite bells and whistles: carbon soles, high-end leather and mesh upper, ratchet buckle, sells for $300 a pair, yada yada. The difference is that the CFS-150 can be re-molded. Anyone who's ever misbaked a pair of custom insoles or shoes in the oven knows what it's like to throw a couple hundred bucks down the drain. The CFS-150 can be re-cooked and fit again, so if you screw it up, or you decide you didn't get it quite right, you're not outta-luck Chuck. Nice touch.

Speaking of nice touches, this little widget is the Ratchet Rocket, a new minitool from Topeak. Standard stuff: 2-6mm hex wrenches, tire levers, T25 Torx head for disc brake rotor bolts, chain breaker, blah blah blah. Costs $34.95. But the nifty thing is a small ratcheting wrench that fits each of the little socket heads. It's small enough to be elegant, but large enough to actually offer decent leverage. The main head features a speed dial so you can spin a bolt down to finger-snug without endlessly ratcheting back and forth. And the long axis features a magnetized socket head for hard-to-reach bolts. You'll still have to use the main socket drive to get something truly tight - and no minitool is perfect - but the Ratchet Rocket looks like an elegant solution to the problem of minitools that are just small enough to be totally unuseable when you actually need them.

About Boulder Report

Boulder, Colorado-based contributor Joe Lindsey offers investigative journalism, analysis and humor about cycling. A popular slogan in this cycling and university town is "Keep Boulder Weird." Lindsey's certainly doing his part.